[HN Gopher] Mac ROM-Inator II Restock and Partnerships ___________________________________________________________________ Mac ROM-Inator II Restock and Partnerships Author : electricant Score : 32 points Date : 2023-09-11 18:18 UTC (3 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.bigmessowires.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.bigmessowires.com) | johnklos wrote: | Modifiable ROM images let us do all sorts of things like add | support for more memory via higher density SIMMs (Quadra / | Centris 610, 650, 800), add support for non-native and not | normally supported hardware, fixing bugs, and so on. | | I'm considering getting one so I can have a low power, boots- | straight-into-use LocalTalk to ethernet bridge with print drivers | and printer sharing. Another option is network booting, since | network file sharing is so incredibly easy with classic Macs. | | Fun! | jandrese wrote: | Apple liked to artificially cripple their machines in the ROM. | I had a Mac LC as a kid that was limited to 10MB of memory | because otherwise it might affect sales of the Mac II Ci. Being | able to remove these artificial limits is great. | dougg3 wrote: | One interesting thing I've discovered recently is that everyone | (including myself) is doing the ROM SIMM pinout slightly wrong | when used in Quadras. The existing programmable SIMMs seem to | work in the 610/650/800 and 700/900/950, but I think the | onboard ROMs aren't being properly disabled, as someone | discovered when trying one in an LC 475. I'm probably going to | write a blog post about the topic soon. | | Also, some exciting news is that ROM disk hacks are definitely | on the way for the Quadras. It's possible to unlock the full 8 | MB of ROM space in several of the Quadras. I've seen video of a | Quadra booting from a 7 MB ROM disk. Too bad most of them after | the 700/900/950 don't have the socket populated :-( The pads | are there at least, for people who dare to add it themselves... | sneak wrote: | > _Friendly competition is great, but it creates a potential | dilemma for me if someone buys another vendor's ROM SIMM and | reprograms it with BMOW's base ROM in order to get the on-the-fly | ROM disk decompression and other features. It could turn into a | situation where my base ROM software is subsidizing another | competing product. To compound the problem, I didn't have any | clear usage policy or "license" for the base ROM to say whether | this type of use was OK. Furthermore my FC8 compression algorithm | is free open-source, but the BMOW base ROM which incorporates it | is not. This all created a large gray area._ | | Imagine thinking that copyright should protect your revenue | stream that is based on making tools for infringing the | copyrights of others. | | Admittedly the thing they're making unauthorized derivative works | from (the Mac ROM) is abandonware, but the idea is still silly | and hypocritical to me. Copyrights are ridiculous to begin with, | ignoring them in one case while trying to wield them against your | community in another is extra ridiculous. | wmf wrote: | I am also opposed to "paying to pirate" but that's not how I | see this situation. He has added significant value over the | original Mac ROM and that's what he's charging for. Acting like | nobody's allowed to make money hurts communities. | indrora wrote: | One thing I find interesting is the "please don't back this up" | mentality of some of the older gray area content. | | I get it, you don't want (bigcorp, chinese clones, etc) causing | you problems. But when you die, what happens? Who's going to be | there to pick up the parts? | | I feel like so many things should get hucked right onto Internet | Archive as soon as someone says "please, no, don't" just out of | pure self preservation. | snvzz wrote: | Definitely. | | Archiving wouldn't go anywhere if we didn't ignore individuals | for the benefit of humanity as a whole. | | By all means, back it all up. | [deleted] | brian_herman wrote: | Wow this looks amazing. | NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: | Nice. I've got the ethernet card for my SE/30, and I always meant | to upgrade it to 128 megs of ram. Maybe I should get this. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-09-11 22:00 UTC)